We all know how the story goes. The Golan Heights is Syrian territory that has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. It was then controversially annexed in 1981, despite the UN calling the efforts “null”, “void” and “without international legal effect”. Today it is still internationally and legally recognised as Syrian land, but Israel persists with its possession.

Of course, such persistence can prove to be quite lucrative when the land is abundant in resources – especially land as fertile as the Syrian Golan – a generous source of gushing waters and game changing oil reserves.

In fact, the Golan Heights contributes a quenching one-third of Israel’s entire water supply. Its catchments leading to the Jordan River and Lake Kinneret – Israel’s main water source – receive long bouts of heavy rainfall, particularly during the colder months and occasionally during stormy season in the summer.

But the Golan Heights does more than just fill Israel’s many swimming pools. It also provides snow for Israel’s one and only skiing destination, the Mount Hermon Ski Resort. The mountain’s peak reaches 9232 feet above sea level and is Syria’s highest point – an altitude Syrians no longer get to enjoy.

The remunerative resort attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year; many of them, foreigners, who are conveniently unaware of the land’s disputation. For most, the irony of supporting Israeli tourism on Syrian soil is lost on them.

Then there’s the contentious matter of oil. The Golan Heights has long been speculated to be sitting on serious amounts of hydrocarbon, and recent discoveries have confirmed these theories. US company, Genie Energy, along with its Israeli subsidiary, Afek Oil and Gas, are currently in the process of drilling for what Israel’s Channel 2 headlined as “an amazing discovery in the Golan Heights”.

An “amazing discovery” it surely is. One that will profoundly benefit Israel for many years to come, as well as Genie Energy shareholders, Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney and Lord Jacob Rothschild.

And in light of recent discoveries, the government of Netanyahu continues attempts to annex the Syrian land. The US backs the UN in its polite requests for Israel to comply with international law, while at the same time, US companies like Genie Energy, use the occupied land for their own ventures, emphasising the notion that the Pentagon is run by corporations.

Israel’s ‘oasis’ in the desert continues to develop at the expense of Syria and the Syrian people. And despite international indignation for Israel’s unlawful actions, nothing of any real substance is done about it. Over the years, this inactivity has encouraged Israel to presume it is above the law.

But while it may seem insignificant, considering Israel’s track-record of getting away with murder (so to speak), it is important to keep in mind that ‘the gift that keeps on giving’ never actually was one.

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Hardly any knowledgeable person doubts that Zionist ideology is the purest form of racism. Zionism is Jewish disguised racism as a raison d’etat. Israel comes right after the U. S., as far as racism is concerned. That is why the U. S. donates to this racist regime $ 3.8 bn per year in order to keep this occupation regime going. Should anybody doubt the racism of the Israeli leadership, read the following article.[1]
Racism among the Israeli leadership is legendary. It started out with the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, saying: “Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it ...

Is Israel and its infamous Wall of Separation representative of a modern evolving democratic state, based upon Biblical principles and teachings, as applied towards the original indigenous Palestinian peoples of Palestine, or is it an example of yet another ethnic-cleansing, apartheid state, possessive of the same genocidal-racist tendencies as those 19th century colonial-imperialistic powers – like the United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa – who also once invaded and committed wholesale destruction of other ancient indigenous peoples entire ways of life; sweeping their survivors aside onto reservations, reserves and Bantustan-type compounds to be ultimately ignored and forgotten?
Professor Ilan Pappe, ...

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History ignored yields history repeated and genocide ignored yields genocide repeated [1]. Anniversaries are useful ...

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The recent debate in the British House of Commons on bombing Syria saw the comparisons coming thick and fast. “Daesh are the fascists of our time”, said Labour MP Dan Jarvis; “this is the fascist war of our generation” opined Sarah Wollaston; whilst Hillary Benn rounded off the debate by explaining that “we are faced by fascists” and “what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated”.
The parallels are ...

It is hardly a coincidence that the Declaration of Independence, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s On the Natural Variety of Mankind were all published within a year of one another, for each supports a necessary aspect of a larger, integrated project. Not only was the rationale for seizing political power (provided by the Declaration) supported by Smith’s popular text (which justified rule by the wealthy business class). Because this wealth and power was contingent on slavery, and territories seized by conquest, Blumenbach’s theory that the “Caucasian race” (a designation he coined, by the way) was the supreme race was ...

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Israel will soon bar all access to a Palestinian village whose farmers have continued a tradition stretching back thousands of years of tending stone terraces to grow crops in the fertile uplands outside Jerusalem.
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“Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.” Ariel Sharon(2)
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So I abstained for some weeks. But I can’t keep quiet any longer.
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* * *
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